Benoît Roels

(b. 15 December 1967, Belgium)

Le Bleu Lézard

Benoît Roels attended the Saint-Luc Art School in Brussels, where he specialized in comic art. He graduated in 1988, and began studies in Roman Philology as back-up plan when his career in comics wouldn't succeed. He was assigned by the publishing house Lombard to draw a series of comic adaptations of the Jean-Louis Foncine novel series 'Les Pays Perdus' with writer Jean-François di Giorgio for the collection Signe de Piste. He additionally made illustrations for the novel 'Les Vergnes de l'Ognon', and created stage set designs for Brussel's fantasy film festival. In 1993, he worked with Di Giorgio again to create the comic story 'Les Fous de Monk' in Hello Bédé.

Oknam

In that same year, he also began an association with Dargaud to create 'Oknam', a series in which his girlfriend and future wife had the starring role and in which he could draw a great variety of cultures. He did art and script for one album, but then left the scriptwriting to Pascal Renard until the fifth album in 1996. Roels and Renard then created the futuristic series about the writer 'Wooly Wan' for Lombard, but the project was cut short due to the death of the writer.

Wooly Wan

Between 1998 and 2004, Roels created his own series, 'Bleu Lézard' in the Glénat collection Bulle Noire. In 2006 he teamed up with Maryse and Jean-François Charles to make a comic adaptation in four books of Christian Jacq's 'Les Mystères d'Osiris', a story set in ancient Egypt.

Les Mystères d'Osiris

In addition to his work on comic books, Benoît Roels has worked on commercial assignments. He has illustrated booklets in the series 'Récits Express' for Averbode, and a comic book about the town of Durbuy, called 'Durbuy's Fabulous Treasure' for European Treasure.